Stand, Fight, Resist

Advocacy & Activism

Jason Griffey | December 16, 2016

The idea that libraries are neutral spaces has been well and disabused over the last few years. From the services we offer to the collections that we curate, the decisions that libraries and librarians make are political ones that reflect values. Sometimes those are the values of the organization, sometimes the values of the individuals, and sometimes they are the values of the communities that the library serves. Those values are illustrated by our technologies, our ontologies, and our descriptors. Those who attempt to hold that “neutrality” of information access is an ideal for which to strive have had a hard time holding to that stance as increasing numbers of librarians question and deconstruct our profession. I would like to suggest something even stronger…that even if it were possible for libraries to be neutral spaces, that to create such a space would be morally questionable, and potentially actively morally wrong. 

I say this as someone who firmly believes in the maxim of combating bad speech with more speech. I am not here advocating controls or restrictions on speech. But it is not the responsibility of every library to collect and distribute literature of hate, or falsehoods, or lies. Some libraries do need to collect everything, the good and the bad, for archival and historical study purposes, but those libraries are fairly obviously identified in practice and the vast majority of libraries should and could take a stand with their actions, programs, policies, and collections to be on the side of justice and scientific fact. 

Neutrality favors the powerful, and further marginalizes the marginalized. In the face of the current political climate, with the use of opinions as bludgeons and disinformation as the weapon of choice for manipulation and intellectual coercion, it is up to those who value fact and believe in the care of those in need to stand up and positively affirm that to do otherwise is evil. 
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The secret life of a librarian: What have I found in books? Streaky bacon and used condoms Anonymous

Librarians

Illustration by Michael Driver 

 

 

 

 

Monday 5 December 2016

Unlike many librarians who always dreamed of standing behind a counter and stamping books, I came to the profession by accident. When I left university with a humanities degree in the 1970s, I had no clue about what I wanted to do with my state-funded higher education. I applied for a job as a gas meter reader which seemed suitable for a working-class lad from a council estate, but at the interview I was told that I was over-qualified and so I became a library assistant instead.

I quickly discovered that there wasn’t much to the library lark, but that if I wanted to get on I would have to become a fully qualified librarian.

Armed with my diploma and a burning social conscience, I set out to change the world of public libraries. Nearly 40 years on I have made the smallest of dents in its battleship armour. But on the way I have made met some amazing people. Read more...

Go Inside the Renovated New York Public Library Reading Room

Public libraries

Olivier Laurent October 5, 2016

The renovated New York Public Library Rose Reading Room / Ryan Fitzgibbon

A group of Instagram photographers got an early look at the Rose Room

It all started with a piece of plaster. On May 30, 2014, a piece of ceiling fell inside the New York Public Library Rose Reading Room. The stunning landmark space was forced to close for “about two weeks.” That turned into two years.

Now, the Rose Room is finally ready for its reopening. And the results are stunning. “I’ve been to the library for events or just to explore the space prior to the closure of the Rose Main Reading Room, but it’s clear that the heart and the history of the New York Public Library stems from this two-city-block-wide study hall,” says Ryan Fitzgibbon, the founder of Hello Mr. magazine. Read more...

Libraries 2016 by John Horrigan

Trends in visiting public libraries have steadied, and many Americans have high expectations for what their local libraries should offer

Read more...

Look Inside the Most Cutting-Edge Public Library in the World

An international library group just deemed it the best

Library lovers have a reason to visit Denmark: the Dokk1 in Aarhus was just crowned the best public library in the world.

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) awarded the Dokk1 with the best library title at a meeting in Columbus, Ohio, throwing a spotlight on the futuristic building that opened in June 2015. The largest public library in Scandinavia has books and workspaces like most public libraries, but serves other functions for the community by housing meetings, performances, art installations and places for kids to play. Read more...

Adam Mørk--The Dokk1 in Aarhus, Denmark

Meet the "Human Google" at the New York Public Library

CBS News August 15, 2016, 7:24 AM

 

 

View More: U.S. News|Live News|More News Videos

 

The local library is a great place to fill your summer reading list for free. But it also remains a vital source for research. And in an era of online searches, librarians at the New York Public Library are still the most- trusted source.
They have been called the "Human Google," said CBSN's Elaine Quijano. And though they may not be as fast as your favorite Internet search engine, they're as reliable as ever.
The Fifth Avenue branch of the New York Public Library attracts about 2.5 million visitors each year.
Many pose with the lions named Patience and Fortitude ... snap pictures in the grand entry hall ... and pass through the reading rooms without cracking a book.
But the tables are full here. "Shushing" happens as much as you may remember. And the phones keep ringing for researchers. Read more...

The Bookmobile by StoryCorps by Storm Reyes

THE NECESSITY OF EXTREMISM IN LIBRARY ADVOCACY AND POLITICAL OUTREACH by pcsweeney March 30, 2016

This is a post that I’ve been working in various forms for about 3 years. There’s a lot of background and explanation here and I’ll even cite my sources where I can. Essentially, I’m going to make the claim that advocacy and politics in America has been hijacked by a sadly necessary extremism and that for libraries to continue to exist as we know them we need to get on board with the rhetoric. If we don’t learn to start to talk about libraries in a severely emotionally meaningful way that engages and activates our most impassioned supporters, libraries will be next on chopping block. We can’t allow this to happen because libraries are one of the few truly great institutions to come out of the American Government.

Before I really get into this, I’d like to point out that this is not a partisan issue. I have seen these tactics in use by every political party. I’d also like to point out that I’m a pretty hardcore moderate and I have a strong and healthy distrust of both progressive and conservative parties as well as low faith in both the government and corporate power structures. I’m going to do my best to pull examples from as many different arenas as possible for a fair and balanced discussion of the issue that should make everyone equally angry.

This all begins with my own blog and why I essentially stopped blogging. The truth is that I was frustrated about what kinds of posts got the most hits. A few years ago I realized that the posts that “did the best” were ones that were inherently mean spirited or controversial for their extreme views. For example, I wrote a post about Second Life that was intentionally mean spirited and to this day it is my most read piece. The thing to realize about this post is that I never really said anything important. There was nothing in there that would move anything forward. Libraries were already dropping Second Life and by the time I wrote the piece the virtual landscape was already a ghost town. On the other hand, I wrote a number of other posts that I think were more important but didn’t have anywhere as close to the same level of emotional reactions, emotion, or rhetoric and they were hardly read at all.  Read more...

Who would be a librarian now? You know what, I'll have a go (Anonymous)

 About the only drawback is dismissiveness from my friends and family. A working-class male taking a degree to be a what? Photograph: Denis Charlet/AFP/Getty Images

“Who would want to become a librarian now?” asked an anonymous public servant on National Libraries Day, seeing before them a graveyard of dead libraries and old reference desks filled by volunteers. A valid question, and one to which I’ll reply: “You know what? I’ll have a go.”

I’m training to be a professional librarian, having just finished a lecture on “semantic web ontologies” and “linked data”, and sat dumbstruck in front of a “Dewey Decimal assembler” without a clue as to what I’m looking at. The course is challenging – it’s a three-year master’s degree that bites eye-watering chunks out of my wages. Why am I doing it to myself?

The fact is, I can’t not. It’s a sort of calling – like becoming a priest, only with warmer business premises. I can’t stand by and let public libraries sink. I won’t.

Forget all about reading as a pleasure, forget that children should have unlimited access to books, throw away arguments about libraries being lifelines for those less fortunate – they’re falling on deaf ears. You just have to look at the comments beneath pro-library articles to gather a general response: Kindles, the internet replacing information needs, and so on. And the one we wheel out about libraries being the centre of the community – there’ll be someone swatting that old classic aside with a “and yet the majority of the population doesn’t use them”.

For me, it boils down to one important point: the internet is a shallow (but extremely wide) surface-level summary of secondary, often opinionated information that sits on a bedrock of substantive knowledge that either isn’t on the internet, or lives behind a paywall, or is too expensive to purchase. Public libraries broker equal access to all that stuff. Get rid of them, and your information becomes drip-fed through Google filters (if you have a computer to access it). Read more...

Yes, Chief Justice Roberts, a prison library can be a ‘very good library

By Valerie Schultz December 17

Valerie Schultz works as a library technical assistant for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Chief Justice John Roberts in Washington in 2013. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., I’m surprised at you. Didn’t your mother raise you better than to insult whole groups of people?

For those who are wondering, I’m talking about a remark the chief justice made last month during oral arguments in Bruce v. Samuels, a dispute about federal prisoners paying legal fees. Here I quote from Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog: When reminded that prisons maintain libraries, “Roberts then shot back, presumably sarcastically, ‘I’m sure they are very good libraries, too.’ ”

I run a library at a state prison for men in California, and I can attest that it is indeed a “very good library.” My library is tasked with assuring that inmates have access to the courts because, although they are convicted criminals, they retain certain civil and human rights. We provide them with access to legal forms, typewriters, law books and computers that can be used to research case law and the myriad rules of the courts, as well as a daily legal newspaper. We make available typing paper, numbered pleading paper and envelopes for filing court documents. We make the required number of copies of outgoing legal work. We weigh documents to determine the number of stamps needed for mailing. In short, we have everything that an inmate acting as his own lawyer needs to bring his concern to the attention of the appropriate court. Read more...

Library founded by family in memory of a man and his donkey

Güzelgöz realized that people living in the villages could not visit the library, so he placed a box full of books on a donkey and visited 36 villages to encourage people to read.

The  children of Mustafa Güzelgöz, who gained fame in Nevşehir's Ürgüp district after he traveled from village to village with his mobile library on his donkey in the 1940s, have established a museum to honor their father's memory. Aziz and Muammer Güzelgöz have been undertaking a reading campaign in the name of their father and they believe that they will be able to make their father's name live forever with the newly established museum. Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Muammer Güzelgöz said his father, who was known as "the librarian with his donkey," passed away in 2005. The Güzelgöz siblings converted their father's house into a museum, however, they needed support from the Culture and Tourism Ministry in order to overcome deficiencies and set an example for future generations. Güzelgöz said he worked as a director of the library for years. "I want students of literature, history and geography to visit this library," said Güzelgöz. "We are already welcoming university students. Those who come to our museum will be able to see the objects that my father used for his reading campaign. We are also displaying a sewing machine. When no one came to his house to read books, my father set up a sewing machine. Women who came to sew had no choice but to read while waiting in line." The museum also displays articles from newspapers about Mustafa Güzelgöz, various photographs and correspondence Güzelgöz had with people who supported his campaign from abroad. Muammer Güzelgöz hopes that these materials will encourage people to read books and show respect to literature.  Read more...

http://sabahdai.ly/WSooP1

Beneath New York Public Library, Shelving Its Past for High-Tech Research Stacks By TOM MASHBERGNOV. 15, 2015

he New York Public Library is creating a vast underground space for its research collection, after abandoning plans to move much of it to New Jersey. CreditJames Estrin/The New York Times

As they skate or snack in Bryant Park, visitors might dismiss the statelyNew York Public Library next door as a dog-eared relic in an age of digital information.

But unbeknown to most of them, 17 feet below ground, in a concrete bunker worthy of the White House, the library is expanding and updating one of the most sophisticated book storage systems in the world.

Since March, after abandoning a much-criticized plan to move the bulk of its research collection to New Jersey, the library has been working instead to create a high-tech space underground for the 2.5 million research works long held in its original stacks.

Read more....

The Syrians defying napalm bombs and sniper fire to build a library by Mairead Dixon

Risking death to build a library

30 August 2015

A Syrian reading in the library rescued from burning houses

The Syrians defying napalm bombs and sniper fire to build a library

Syrians in the rebel-held town of Darayya have lived under siege from Assad's forces for three years. But some students are trying to create a place of peace among the rubble

BY MAIREAD DIXON

Syrians in the rebel-held town of Darayya have faced sniper fire, napalm bombing and indiscriminate killing at the hands of the Assad regime.

But among the destruction, one group of young men managed to create a place of sanctuary - a library.

After residents of the besieged town fled, the students rescued books from their abandoned private libraries. In some cases, the buildings were still burning. So far they’ve collected more than 11,000 books. 

One of the volunteers, Abu Al-Ezz, 23, told Humans of Syria: “One day we came up with the idea to collect all the books scattered throughout the city under the rubble of demolished homes.

“It’s been a daunting and dangerous task.

“We’ve spent long days cataloguing the books, so if the owners return after the war they can have them back.” [ ... ]

The volunteers take turns to work as librarians and have created a check out system to keep track of borrowed books. They also wrote the original owner’s name inside each book, in the hope of restoring them to them after the war.

The library contains 11,000 books including Arabic and foreign novels, religious and academic books.

Abu Malek Alshamy said: “We created an atmosphere inside the library of silence and light, with tables for the readers.

“In such a place, the most beautiful thing is getting away from the war and battles.” [ ... ]

*Read more at:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/syrians-defying-napalm-bombs-sniper-6337265#ICID=sharebar_twitter

Libraries in Times of Crisis By George Eberhart | August 20, 2015

Julia Brungs, IFLA policy and projects officer.

 

 

The IFLA Committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE) held a panel discussion Tuesday, August 18, at the World Library and Information Congress in Cape Town on “The Role of Library and Information Workers in a Time of Crisis.”

Simon Edwards, director of professional services for CILIP, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in the UK, said the scope of potential crises that librarians face worldwide is vast, ranging from personal crises to community, national, and global crises that threaten the entire species. “Government agencies also classify crises as sudden (with an immediate impact) and smoldering (a long-term crisis of attrition),” he said. “Libraries play subtly different roles in supporting communities in each.”

Read more: http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/blogs/the-scoop/libraries-in-times-of-crisis/

All Those Techies Who Predicted the Demise of the Public Library Were Wrong

Americans still love libraries more than any other public institution.

By Wayne Wiegand / Oxford University Press

July 16, 2015

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The following was written by author Wayne Wiegand as a compliment to his new book, Part of Our Lives: A People's History of the American Public Library (Oxford University Press, 2015): 

Indisputable fact--Americans love their public libraries. Evidence to support this statement abounds. A 2013 report by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project noted that in the previous decade “every other major institution (government, churches, banks, corporations) has fallen in public esteem except libraries, the military, and first responders.” The study also found that 91% of those surveyed over sixteen years old said libraries are “very” or “somewhat” important to their communities, and 98% identified their public library experience as “very” or “mostly positive.”

Another Pew study found 94% of parents believe libraries are important for their children; 84% said because libraries develop a love of reading and books. Read more...

Library Bucket List: On loving all libraries by Jen Li

Articles

Library Bucket List: On loving all libraries

July 14, 2015

Library Bucket List: On loving all libraries

by Jen Li, INALJ Contributor
I have a ‘library bucket list’. Although my PhD research focuses on three case study libraries in Sydney, my reading and travels have taken me beyond Sydney and those three libraries. I have a mental list of libraries that I would like to visit one day, libraries that I would love to return to, and whenever I’m in a new city I will visit their libraries and discover ones that I didn’t realise I wanted to visit but am glad that I found them. The bucket list is developed through hours upon hours of reading books and articles about libraries, following libraries and librarians on Twitter, and reading websites like BookRiot on an almost daily basis. There are many lists out there that proclaim the ‘Most Beautiful Libraries in the World’ or ‘Libraries You Should Visit Before You Die’, and I like to read them for two reasons: to see how many libraries I can tick off and say, “Yes, I’ve been there!”, and to add new libraries to my list.

A note on these lists, however: these lists typically contain grand, beautiful libraries. There are palatial and majestic libraries out there in the world, libraries with marble floors and columns, and what seem like endless rows of bookshelves. You know the ones. They are spectacular libraries that intimidate. These are generally national libraries, or a city’s first or central library, or academic libraries. My bucket list contains these libraries, and I will never say no to an opportunity to visit them. But I also love the library that never makes it onto those lists; the humble neighbourhood library that perhaps isn’t as well funded, or is open as many hours as its users would like, or whose decor and furnishings might not have been updated for a number of years because its budgetary priorities lay elsewhere. Read more...

Articles

Library Bucket List: On loving all libraries

July 14, 2015

Library Bucket List: On loving all libraries

by Jen Li, INALJ Contributor
I have a ‘library bucket list’. Although my PhD research focuses on three case study libraries in Sydney, my reading and travels have taken me beyond Sydney and those three libraries. I have a mental list of libraries that I would like to visit one day, libraries that I would love to return to, and whenever I’m in a new city I will visit their libraries and discover ones that I didn’t realise I wanted to visit but am glad that I found them. The bucket list is developed through hours upon hours of reading books and articles about libraries, following libraries and librarians on Twitter, and reading websites like BookRiot on an almost daily basis. There are many lists out there that proclaim the ‘Most Beautiful Libraries in the World’ or ‘Libraries You Should Visit Before You Die’, and I like to read them for two reasons: to see how many libraries I can tick off and say, “Yes, I’ve been there!”, and to add new libraries to my list.

A note on these lists, however: these lists typically contain grand, beautiful libraries. There are palatial and majestic libraries out there in the world, libraries with marble floors and columns, and what seem like endless rows of bookshelves. You know the ones. They are spectacular libraries that intimidate. These are generally national libraries, or a city’s first or central library, or academic libraries. My bucket list contains these libraries, and I will never say no to an opportunity to visit them. But I also love the library that never makes it onto those lists; the humble neighbourhood library that perhaps isn’t as well funded, or is open as many hours as its users would like, or whose decor and furnishings might not have been updated for a number of years because its budgetary priorities lay elsewhere. Read more...

Where are the books? Libraries under fire as they shift from print to digital.

 Laughing students walk into the renovated Woodrow Wilson Library in May. The library is used by local elementary schoolchildren as a space to hang out with friends and use the Internet. (Erin Schaff/For The Washington Post)

by Michael S. Rosenwald July 7 at 9:34 PM

The hallmark of public libraries — the printed book, bound by covers and centuries of page-turning — is being shoved aside by digital doppelgangers.

Around the country, libraries are slashing their print collections in favor of e-books, prompting battles between library systems and print purists, including not only the pre-pixel generation but digital natives who represent a sizable portion of the 1.5 billion library visits a year and prefer print for serious reading.

  [Millennials prefer reading in print. Yes, you read that right.]

Some of the clashes have been heated. In New York, protesters outside the city’s main branch have shouted: “Save the stacks! Save the stacks!” In Northern Virginia, the Fairfax County library system chief recently mused that the Friends of the Library were no longer friends — a feud fueled by outrage over a print collection that has shrunk by more than 300,000 books since 2009. The drop in the District is even more dramatic: Nearly 1 million books have vanished since 2009.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/where-are-the-books-libraries-under-fire-as-they-shift-from-print-to-digital/2015/07/07/eb265752-1525-11e5-9518-f9e0a8959f32_story.html

The New York Public Library Wars

What went wrong at one of the world’s eminent research institutions?

Alamy

The Rose Main Reading Room in the New York Public Library’s main branch, on Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street. A group of scholars spearheaded a successful protest to stop radical changes at the library, but now it looks as if they may have lost anyway.

By Scott Sherman

Scholars who use the New York Public Library are boiling with frustration. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. In 2014 the library, under pressure from a coalition that included four senior scholars, abandoned its controversial Central Library Plan, which entailed gutting the stacks at the 42nd Street Library and selling the popular Mid-Manhattan Library across the street. But the situation hasn’t turned out how many critics had hoped.

Paula Glatzer, an independent Shakespeare scholar, has been engaged in research at the library since 1963 and has recently used the collections for her contribution to the new Variorum Shakespeare editions, published by the Modern Language Association. On January 15 she sent a letter to Anthony W. Marx, the library’s president: "Sadly, I have had to tell my Variorum colleagues that the NYPL is over … for now." Many books are stored off-site, some mislabeled as on-site; others have been lost or discarded, she wrote. "I requested a series. It couldn’t be found. I said it was hard to lose 21 volumes. A librarian overheard me and offered to look. He later emailed. All 21 volumes were indeed missing."  Read more...

Plans for Brooklyn Branches Have Merit - NYTimes.com

By MICHAEL KIMMELMANJAN. 25, 2015

Photo

A rendering for the proposed Brooklyn Public Library in Brooklyn Heights that has apartments on top.

Credit
Brooklyn Public Library

Two
proposals to sell and develop local library sites are wending through
the Brooklyn Public Library pipeline, and, predictably, opponents have
manned the barricades, citing the usual arguments about selling off
public land to rapacious developers.

But
for a change, the plans look promising. There is good and bad
development, after all, and sometimes, with foresight and some help from
City Hall, a community asset like a public library can anchor positive
development.

One
plan envisions updating, but shrinking, a branch in Brooklyn Heights
built in the 1960s. The other overhauls a popular, decrepit branch, from
the 1970s, in Sunset Park. Both involve housing, a fair chunk of it
subsidized, mostly on top of new storefront libraries.

There’s
reason for skepticism. In 2007, the New York Public Library sold off
its Donnell site in Midtown Manhattan for what now seems like a song.
Library authorities also cooked up a scheme
to pool resources and cash in on the property values of the
Mid-Manhattan branch and a science library at 34th Street, consolidating
both in the 42nd Street building by demolishing its historic stacks.
That derailed last year in the face of stiff protests and runaway cost
estimates. So did a separate proposal to demolish a century-old branch
near Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. Read more...

Kentucky Contingencies | EveryLibrary

Kentucky Contingencies

Post on January 15, 2015 by John Chrastka tagged: campbell county library, kentucky, tea party

When “any tax is a bad tax”, the library is an instrument of tyranny.

The Tea Party of Northern Kentucky case against two libraries is set to be ruled on by the state Appeals court any day now.
This appeal follows a loss by the libraries in the lower state court. 
The loss would roll back funding for 99 out of 104 libraries in Kentucky
to at least 1979 levels.  To date, the Supreme Court has refused to rule on the case, remanding it to the Appeals court.  Likewise, the legislature in Kentucky failed to pass a bill at the end of last session to ‘fix’ the points of law at the root of the case.  The President of the Senate wanted to let the Courts sort it out.  The points of law are pretty thoroughly discussed
in other places. We don’t have a way to handicap the Appeals court
deliberations, but we – and the rest of the national library advocacy
ecosystem – do need to anticipate their ruling.



EveryLibrary has been tracking this case since 2013 for two reasons:  If
the Tea Party ultimately prevails, the 99 libraries affected by the
ruling may have to go out for Petition or Ballot to reset their tax
rates to current levels; and, that this is a situation where a small
group of anti-tax ideologues sued libraries, and that technique for
‘shrinking government’ has been proven viable. If the libraries prevail
in their appeal, the funding picture for libraries in the Commonwealth
of Kentucky is more stable, but the underlying anti-tax climate
there – and across the country – has only been handed temporary setback.
When the URL one of the local plaintiff groups is “TaxlessSociety.com”,
they will be back.  They are on a mission.  Read more....